


Pirate's Treasure

by Mithen



Category: WWE Immortals (Video Game), World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Cross-dimensional Travel, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-12
Updated: 2016-11-12
Packaged: 2018-08-30 13:18:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8534671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithen/pseuds/Mithen
Summary: Seth Rollins gets dragged into a weird alternate world by some freaky magical lantern, and meets a version of himself who's slightly older and maybe slightly wiser.  And also a pirate.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [APgeeksout](https://archiveofourown.org/users/APgeeksout/gifts).



Seth Rollins was the Architect of the Shield--or he had been, before he realized there was a greater design he could be part of. He was a strategist, a planner, a tactician. But as Stephanie McMahon started to throw open Bray Wyatt’s cursed lantern, his reaction wasn’t tactical or strategic at all. It was intuitive, a sick _knowledge_ that came into his head all in one terrifying flash.

“Steph, no!” he yelled, and tried to yank the lantern from her hands.

It flew open, and black light flooded from it in waves, swamping his sight, thrumming in his gut in a bass shudder. He tried to grab on to something, to anything, but the world was fading out--or was it he that was fading? Everything fell away from him and he fell into it, a dizzying plunge that seemed to go on forever.

 _So this is how I die. That’s stupid,_ he thought. And then:

_At least I got to hold the heavyweight championship._

Darkness.

* * *

He woke to the smell of piss and mud. He was lying facedown on pavement--pavement? How--and there was something tugging at his feet. Someone was trying to pull his boots off!

He scrambled up, kicking at his attacker with panicky fury. One foot connected with the thief’s chest and the thief sat down hard on the ground. “Shit,” the guy announced, snarling, and tossed his hair back as he went for the sword at his side.

A lot of weird pieces of information hit Seth all at once. One was that he definitely wasn’t in Stephanie’s office anymore, but on a city street. One was that the man he’d just kicked was dressed like Halloween, in a jacket of red brocade and an actual honest-to-God leather scabbard with a sword. But as the man came to his feet with that (very sharp-looking) sword out, the most important piece of information Seth had to process was that the man’s face--intelligent, arrogant, slightly cruel and slightly rueful--was a near-perfect match for the one he saw in the mirror every morning.

Seth Rollins stared at someone who looked just like him, dressed up as an _actual fucking pirate._

“Oh hell,” the pirate-him said, lowering his sword. “Another one?”

“What?”

“Never mind,” the pirate said, grabbing his arm. Seth realized that whoever he was, his weird Seth-as-pirate cosplay wasn’t perfect: his hair was still half-blond. “If you’re me, you’ll do. Come on.”

“What?”

“Blazes, are you a version that’s a bit wrong in the head?” the pirate snarled. “Can you say something other than ‘what’?”

 _Blazes?_ “Where the hell am I? Why do you look like me?”

“Oh.” The pirate stopped and looked at him closely. “You’re new here?”

“Where?”

The pirate rolled his eyes. “Very well. Let me provide you with some quick answers.” He started to drag Seth forward again. “Who? You may call me Captain Rollins, I suppose. Where? This, lad, is Suplex City. And what? Is a cage match my ally and I have in a few minutes, in which we need a third. You will do.”

“Cage match.” It was the first thing Seth had heard so far that made any sense. “Right.”

“You have no weaponry,” Rollins said with a frown, kicking a skittering rat out of the way. 

“I don’t fight with weapons,” Seth said. “Well, maybe a chair.”

Rollins threw back his head and laughed heartily. “A chair. Oh, this should be fun.” He yanked a manhole cover open and grabbed the ladder within it. “Come on.”

Seth could hear the sound echoing through the tunnels long before they reached the arena: hoarse and feral, more rabid than any WWE crowd he’d ever wrestled in front of. Most of the indie crowds too, for that matter. 

“There you are!” Seth and his guide rounded a corner at a run and almost bowled over--Seth blinked at the sight of Nikki Bella in leather and chains, but had no time to respond as she grabbed them both by the arm and ran toward a grated door that was lifting up.

The three of them tumbled into a caged arena; the racket of the crowd lifted up around them. Above them, stars peeked through the wires of the cage, open to the sky. “Nikki, what’s going on? Who is this guy?” Seth said.

Nikki looked at the third member of their group, who shrugged. “He’s new,” Captain Rollins said.

“Oh boy,” said Nikki.

“Get ready,” Rollins said, and the door on the far side of the cage opened, to reveal Chris Jericho, Kevin Owens, and Finn Balor.

Or...kind of? Jericho was carrying a rapier and was wearing high leather boots that wouldn’t be the least bit practical in the ring. Owens looked pretty normal, but those darker stains on his t-shirt...were they blood? Not that that was totally out of the ordinary either. And Finn was in full Demon gear with some sort or black light or something casting a weird wavering aura all around him that made Seth’s eyes water and sting.

Seth heard a chuckle from above the cage, high in the seats. Somehow it carried above the shrieks of the crowd, a demented sound. He looked up to see Brock Lesnar sitting on something that looked like an iron throne, grinning down at them. He was wearing _full fucking black steel armor_.

“Don’t meet his eyes,” Captain Rollins muttered, pulling Seth’s arm. “No one looks directly at the Mayor of Suplex City.”

“Jesus Christ,” Seth said. “What the hell is going on--”

“--Here they come,” said Nikki, and their three opponents came toward them.

“Jericho, put that fucking sword away,” Seth called to him. “Someone’s gonna get hurt.”

Jericho smiled. Beside Seth, Captain Rollins sighed and drew his own sword. “Hope you learn fast, kid,” he said.

“Don’t call me kid, what the hell,” said Seth.

Owens stepped forward. He rolled his neck with relish.

And then he stretched and growled and _transformed into an actual fucking what the fuck bear._

“Holy shit!” Seth yelled, and fell on his ass.

“Keep up, kid!” Rollins barked. “I take Jericho, Nikki takes the Demon, you take Owens!”

“Like _hell_ I take Owens!” Seth screamed. “And don’t call me kid!”

But the other two weren’t paying any attention, they were closing with their respective enemies. Jericho’s rapier and Rollins’s sword were clanging together, Nikki Bella’s hands were filled with flaming witchlight, Finn Balor was--Seth looked away hastily from the eldritch horror bristling with teeth and found himself face to face with a drooling, red-eyed bear who still managed to look a fair amount like Kevin Owens.

“Uh, can we talk about this?” said Seth.

The bear snapped at him and Seth bolted for the cage door, shaking it. It was locked, of course.

The cage rattled as Owens crashed into it, Seth ducking out of the way just in time. The crowd screamed. Mayor Fucking Brock Lesnar laughed like a maniac. 

Seth climbed the cage. Owens reared up, batting at him, and Seth pulled his feet hastily out of the way. _Think, Seth, think! How do you wrestle a bear?_ Without letting himself think too much about how crazy this was, he dropped onto the broad hairy back and got Owens in a chokehold.

Owens roared and slammed backwards against the cage, driving the breath from Seth’s body, graying his vision around the edges. Seth held on grimly, struggling to find purchase in the brawny, muscular neck, refusing to let go. Owens growled and gasped and threw them both around the ring, but eventually his struggles weakened and he slumped to the ground, the hairy bear form blurring away to reveal the human Kevin Owens once more, his eyes closed.

“Not bad,” said a familiar voice, and Seth whirled to find Nikki and Captain Rollins by his side. Bruises encircled Nikki’s throat, and Rollins had blood trickling down his cheek from a cut, but otherwise they looked all right.

“You’re not pretending to be me,” Seth blurted out, staring at his double. “You… _are_ me.”

A sardonic smile. “The genius figured it out,” Rollins said.

The crowd was screaming, roaring for the next event. “We’d better get going,” Nikki said, grabbing their arms and heading toward the door as it lifted.

As they left, Seth felt the back of his neck crawling; he looked back to see Brock Lesnar in his heavy skull-studded black armor, watching him go with a speculative look on his face.

* * *

“Alternate worlds,” Seth said slightly later. Nikki had vanished into the night after kissing both of them on the cheek, leaving him with the pirate. “And copies of superstars from all sorts of other worlds. You’re fucking kidding me.”

“Not ‘superstars,’ whatever the blazes those are,” said Rollins. “Copies of my crew and my enemies.”

“Well,” said Seth, “We’ll just have to agree to disagree about who’s the copy and who’s the original.” He looked around the alley. It was filthier than any city he’d ever remembered seeing, and that was saying something. “Just show me how to get out of here. I’ve got a championship to get back to.”

“Lad.” Rollins looked at him, and Seth swallowed hard at the sight of his own eyes filled with something weird. Was it compassion? “There’s only one way to get back to your own world, and that’s to beat the Mayor of Suplex City in single combat.”

“The bastard in all the black armor? Brock Lesnar?”

Rollins nodded. “Many have tried. None have succeeded.”

Something in his voice… Seth looked at him closely and realized that they _weren’t_ identical after all. There were faint lines at the corners of Seth’s eyes, the kind you got from squinting into the sun. Or laughing a lot. “You’re older than I am,” Seth said.

Rollins nodded again. 

“But your hair--”

Rollins’s laugh was a little sad and a little affectionate, but neither seemed to be directed at Seth. “It’s always possible to go back to an old style,” he said.

“I suppose,” said Seth.

“Trust me,” said the pirate.

Seth raised an eyebrow at him. “If you’re me, I think we both know how unlikely that is.”

This time the laugh was more heartfelt. “Good point.” Rollins sobered. “It’s true, I am older than you, lad. From further along in our life. Further than anyone else I’ve met here in my attempts to get home. Everyone I’ve ever met is--” He broke off, grimacing. “Well. From a younger time.” Seth squinted at him, and the pirate smiled wearily. “I’m heading to my bolthole,” he said. “Can you at least trust me enough to find rest there tonight?”

Seth thought about it for a moment. He had no idea what else was out there in this crazy city. And there was something about Captain Rollins’s eyes… “Sure, I guess.”

* * *

“The magic of this world continues to amaze me,” Rollins said, gazing at the dim light bulb swinging from the ceiling. “You touch a panel and light springs into being! Astonishing.”

“You don’t have electricity where you come from?” Seth sat down at the rickety table as Rollins locked the door.

“Nay, such arcane arts are not ours to wield. I and my crew are but humble buccaneers, sailing the wide seas in search of booty.” The Captain raised an eyebrow at Seth’s snicker. “What?”

“Oh, nothing,” said Seth. “I hope you get lots and lots of booty.”

“I have, at that.” Rollins opened a ramshackle refrigerator that was making an ominous buzz, then punched it into silence as he removed what looked like a carton of Chinese takeout. He sniffed it gingerly, then tossed it at Seth. “I have treasure indeed, lad. I have freedom on the open sea, I have my dear Phoenix--my ship,” he said at Seth’s confused look. “A lovely sixteen-gun brigantine, as neat and trim a ship as ever you saw. My home, with all my crew on board.” He pulled something that looked like jerky out of the fridge and sat down at the table, biting off a strip. “Treasure, aye! Ropes of pearls and illuminated scrolls, spices and coins and bolts of silk. And my greatest treasure,” he said, and drew from an inner pocket a small silver casket with ornate etchings on it that Seth couldn't see clearly. “That which I had, and lost, and regained.” He smiled and held it before Seth’s eyes. “I know you, young Seth, and I know you would kill me without a qualm to have what lies within this. Though don’t think for a minute you can gain it that way, either. It cannot be stolen, only given freely.”

Seth eyed it cautiously as he finished off the cold spicy noodles. “Is it magic?” Since seeing Owens turn into a bear, he was pretty sure he didn’t want anything to do with magic.

“Not a bit of it,” said Rollins. “And I got it back through my own suffering and my own blood.” He brought the silver case to his lips briefly, then tucked it back into his jacket.

“Well,” said Seth, “I’d rather avoid having to suffer too much, if you don’t mind.”

A glint of wry laughter touched Rollins’s eyes, unnervingly familiar and unnervingly foreign at the same time. “It matters not whether I mind,” he said. “Your path is your own.”

“Right,” said Seth. There was a heap of black plastic and wires on the table, and he poked at it, looking away from the annoying sympathy in the pirate’s eyes. “What’s this?”

Rollins shrugged. “I scavenged it from a refuse bin. It called to me, somehow. It has a kind of magic in it, but its workings are beyond me. Such magic is not mine.”

“It’s not magic,” Seth said absently, although he wasn’t exactly sure that was true. There was definitely something strange about it. “It’s some kind of...radio transmitter. Weird.” He squinted at it, vague memories of electronics class nudging at him. “I think I can fix it.” He started poking at the wires, feeling things coming together. It was all intuition, and yet… and yet...

Captain Rollins watched him for a while, then yawned and lay down on the narrow bed in the corner. Seth could hear him singing softly to himself, some tune about the sea and the wind. Seth kept fiddling with the wires, and after a time the pirate song broke down into soft snores.

* * *

“So the only way back to our worlds is by beating Brock Lesnar?”

Captain Rollins was rubbing at his eyes. He poured himself a shot of rum and raised it into the morning sunlight, then downed it in one gulp. Seth shook his head when Rollins offered him a glass of his own.

“Aye,” Rollins said. “It is said that the Door of Eternity lies behind his iron throne, but none can defeat him to find their way home. I tried, once.”

“How did it go?”

Rollins poured himself another shot of rum. “I couldn’t walk for five months,” he said, and tipped the glass.

Seth felt his lips thin. “I’m going to challenge him today.”

The pirate raised his eyebrows. “Don’t expect me to nurse you back to health, laddie. I’m not _that_ fond of you.”

“You won’t have to. I don’t think.”

“Such confidence,” murmured Rollins.

* * *

Seth stood in the arena, the air shaking with the shouts and chants of the mob. The steel cage had been lifted, and he met Brock Lesnar’s eyes and sneered at him. “That’s right,” he called. “I challenge you!”

Lesnar stood slowly, his black armor glistening in the sun. “You got yourself a fight, ya little punk,” he said, his nasal Midwest twang unchanged and incongruous above the bristling medieval armor.

He leaped from the throne directly into the arena, and the ground shook as he landed.

Seth swallowed hard as he struggled to keep his balance. Shooting a quick glance to his left, he caught a glimpse of Captain Rollins in the stands, near the front. He looked pale and worried until he realized Seth was looking at him, then flashed an abrupt cocky smile.

Seth gave him a thumbs-up and then dodged a _fucking gigantic iron hammer_ that Brock had pulled out of his ass, Seth hoped not literally. The ground trembled at the impact, and Seth flipped Brock off, feeling cold panicky sweat prickle his skin. _Come on, you bastard, chase me._

Brock roared with fury and charged at him. Seth dodged again, feeling the hot wind of his passage brush past him. Another charge, and a spike from his armor caught at Seth’s shirt, tearing through it. Too close.

Fortunately, he didn’t need to risk it again. The Mayor of Suplex City was in the right position.

Seth grabbed the transmitter from his belt and hit a button, grinning. 

The sky above the arena filled with the sound of blades chopping the air as an actual black helicopter hove into view. A hook descended; Seth grabbed it and attached it to Lesnar’s belt, hanging on for dear life.

He heard Captain Rollins hollering with glee as the hook reeled back in, hoisting them both upward.

The wind was roaring around them both as Seth jumped into the helicopter bay. He looked out. All of Suplex City stretched around him, glimmering with toxic beauty. He grinned at it, at all of the copies of him and of Dean and of Roman in it, fighting each other forever.

Then he cut Lesnar free and watched him fall back down toward the ground, flailing and roaring. He took a deep breath and jumped after the Mayor of Suplex City, driving him into the ground, feeling the jolt of it in his spine, solid and final and definite.

Brock Lesnar lay unmoving in his black armor, and Seth put his foot on the back of his neck and posed. He wondered if he needed to make a pin to get the win, but then he heard Captain Rollins cry out, “The Door of Eternity opens for you! Go, lad, go!”

Seth looked up to where the iron throne had shimmered into a portal of some kind, swirling with the same weird black light of the cursed lantern. Forgetting Lesnar, he scrambled across the arena and up the wall, clambering to the portal.

And then he stopped and looked back at Captain Rollins.

“Only the victor can pass!” Rollins called to him. “Go home! Go!”

Seth hesitated a moment longer, then grabbed the radio transmitter from his belt and threw it to Rollins, who caught it out of the air with a broad grin of delight. Seth turned away and stepped forward, closer to the swirling maelstrom. Beyond it was his world--the Authority. The ring and the crowds. His fellow wrestlers, all his enemies. And--

“Hey!” 

Seth snatched his hand back from the portal at the shout. He turned just in time to see Rollins take his silver casket, his treasure, from his breast pocket it and toss it, glittering in the air, toward him.

“Fare thee well, lad!” the pirate called as Seth caught it out of the air. No time for anything more--the portal was sparking and billowing as if becoming unstable. Seth tucked the little case in his pocket, took a breath, and plunged through.

* * *

Steph and Hunter were staring at him, their faces pale. Seth hoisted the lantern he had just slammed shut and said “I think you should keep this in storage, guys. And keep it closed.”

“You may have a point,” Steph said, with just the smallest tremor in her voice. Then she rallied, lifting her chin. “I’ll take that under consideration.”

They left, taking the lantern with them, and Seth had a feeling he hadn’t seen the last of that thing. But for now, at least, it was closed and he was home. Home? Kind of home, anyway. Someplace familiar, at least.

He went to sit down on the table with a sigh and felt the little silver case in his pocket. He drew it out, looking at it closely. Captain Rollins’s greatest treasure. 

The cover was etched in filigree, a familiar stylized shape, broad at the top and tapered at the bottom. Seth felt the hair on his arms stand on end as he looked at it, felt his heartbeat pick up.

He opened it, already knowing somehow what he would find within.

The casket was empty save for the braided plait that lay within, with three locks of hair twined together: one dark, one reddish-blond, and one bleached pale.


End file.
